


If anybody ask it, I'm taken. If anybody wants to know, he is too.

by the_bait



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Confessions, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:48:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25128775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_bait/pseuds/the_bait
Summary: Ronan and Adam get stuck in an elevator and Ronan *is not* freaking out and Adam *does not* want to punch him. At all.
Relationships: Ronan Lynch & Adam Parrish, Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish
Comments: 4
Kudos: 169





	If anybody ask it, I'm taken. If anybody wants to know, he is too.

“Are you scared?”

“No. I have this terrified look on my face because I’m. having. so. much. fun.” Ronan reiterated each word with a kick.

“It’s just an elavator,” said Adam. Ronan was wound tight, shoulders hunched, taking sharp intakes of breath. Adam was not freaking out but seeing Ronan trying to kick the elavator doors down was making his heart beat faster.

“They’ll come get us.”

“Who?” Nearly barked Ronan. 

“Someone. We rang the emergency button.”

Ronan makes a sound at the back of throat and proceeds to kick the doors some more.

“Lynch, that’s not going to solve anything.”

“Sitting around waiting for someone to save us won’t either.”

“Save us? Jesus, Lynch, stop being such a drama queen.” 

Ronan just growls. Adam sighs and sits down. No point trying to kick down a door and make himself tired and frustrated. Sure, they had been standing there for a good part of an hour but he still didn’t think it warranted Ronan trying to kick down the doors. Or try to pry them open, which he was doing right about now.

“Ronan. Come sit down.”

“I-” he grunts, “am not sitting the fuck down, Parrish.”

Adam shruggs and lies down. “Gansey will wonder where we are and he’ll come get us, if no one else will.”

“What?!” He wirls around to face Adam and his eyebrows go up when he sees him on the floor, arms behind his head. “Gansey? I’m not waiting till fucking Gansey notices we’re missing to fucking get out of here, are you insane? He’s probably all caught up with the Maggot and won’t even realise we’re missing till he’s gone to bed and I’m not right there next to him making noise.”

“No,” says Adam, “he’ll notice.” He’s trying to make himself and Ronan feel better, he thinks, because surely,  _ surely _ , Gansey will notice long before that happens. Or Blue will. 

Ronan snorts. “Jealous Blue won’t notice you’re gone?”

Adam sighs. “What are you trying to say?”

“Come on, we all know how that ended. And how Gansey is, you know, acting like a puppy around her.” He starts chewing those goddamn bracelets of his. Adam figures that’s not very hygienic. 

“If you’re trying to pick a fight with me because you’re panicking and scared we’ll be shut here forever, that won’t work.”

“Like hell it won’t.”

“It won’t.”

“Like you don’t look at them like you either want to kill them both or steal Maggot away from him.”

“Ronan.”

“I’ve noticed. You may not realise that she’s well over you but I see the way they’re always-”   
“Ronan,” Adam says forcefully. “Stop.”

“See, I told you I-”

“Lynch. I swear to all those deities out there if you don’t stop I will get up and smash your head into those doors.”

“Well, fuck you, Parrish, like you could even do that.”

“I could. I don’t want to, though. So, just, you know, stop. I don’t want to talk about Gansey and Blue.”

“Becasue you’re still hung up on her. And she-”

Adam gets up. Adam wants to shut him up because of-fucking-course Ronan is doing this to distract himself from his panicky heart but of-fucking-course he’s also doing this to somehow hurt himself even more. 

Adam will give it to him.

“Are you trying to do this because you wanna know what I’m thinking or to make yourself even more miserable? Because, if so, you can just ask me instead of staring at me all the goddamn time.”

Ronan looks murderous. And small.  _ Small? _ Yes, small. Is he scared? Adam is just wondering what he, himself, is doing at this point.

The silence fills up the space, makes it seem and feel smaller. Adam can taste the way Ronan wants to  _ get the fuck out  _ of the small space they found themselves confined to on his tongue. Can feel the way his jaw locks, his teeth grind, his mouth turns downwards. 

Adam can also feel how he, himself, is feeling. His heartbeat, his sweaty palms, how he wants to push and pull and break and make. 

“Rona-”

“Shut up.”

Adam sighs. And then wants to kick himself. He should have never caged Ronan, cornered him into admiting something he wasn’t ready for.  _ Fuck _ .

“Ronan,” he gets up to move towards Ronan, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

Ronan keeps looking down and not moving. His brow is furrowed, his hands in fists at his sides. Adam can see the slight flush on his cheeks.

“Why-” Ronan stops and then continues. “Why would you say that.”

“That you look at me?”

Ronan makes to shake his head but then shrugs. 

“I wanted to know why you do that but then hurt yourself asking those questions.”

“I’m not fucking hurting myself,” he says, raising his face to face Adam. “You liked Blue, you went out with her. You were moping for days when she dumped you. And now she’s all in love with Gansey and Gansey with her and of course I-” he stops abruptly and just shuts his eyes.

“Blue was never mine. And I don’t think we were ever meant to work.”

Ronan mutters under his breath and Adam hears him say “no shit”. He smiles.

“Lynch, I’m not still hung up on her. Did it suck she left me for Gansey? Yes. Was I bummed about it? Yes. But I don’t know how much of me was upset about the fact that she left me for Gansey and how much of me was upset about the fact that she left me.”

Ronan shakes his head, “What?”

“You know. I never had anything I wanted just because I wanted it. I had to fight and work and make myself small. Every day of my life. And Blue came along and noticed me. But she also met Gansey. Gansey never had to doubt himself worthy of-” he shrugs, “of love, I guess. Like I do. And he wants her and she wants him and it’s easy. With me, it’s always a fight, always a struggle, always balancing what I want and how much I’m willing to give away.” Adam sighs and sits down. Hard. It was too hot inside the elevator and they’d been stuck for nearly an hour. “I was upset I’d lost the fight.” Then he added, “Don’t tell Blue I said that.”

Rona kept quiet. The silence stretched. After a while Ronan sat down and leaned his back against the wall. 

Adan could tell he wanted to speak. Adam wanted to tell him that he could, that there wasn’t any chance he’s get out of this hurt. 

“I didn’t want to have this conversation like this.”   
“Like what,” grunted Ronan.

“Stuck in an elevator. With you pushing me into hurting you just so you can have an excuse to hate yourself.” 

He hears the thud Ronan’s head makes when it hits the wall and Ronan sighing. 

“Shut up, Parrish.”

“I think about you and Kavinsky all the time.”

Ronan’s eyes fly open. “What?”

“You. And Kavinsky.”

Ronan just blinks at him.

“I think about you all the time but I never ask you stupid questions, do I? I might be burning to know what happened and how you felt and if and how you mourned him, but I don’t.”

“You can ask.”

“I don’t think I want to know the answers, Ronan.”

“Why?”

“God, Ronan. If you wouldn’t avert my eyes every time I catch you looking at me, you’d realise I also stare at you.”

Ronan’s mouth hangs opened. Adam decides he has lost his mind. 

“What do you mean,” whispers Ronan, slowly.

Adam scoffs. “The hell do you think I mean, Lynch?”

“Are you messing with me?”

“Messing with you?” Adam wants to bang his head against the doors and knock himself out. “You’re still doing it, Lynch!”

Ronan raises his voice, “Doing what?”

“Fighting me. When I’m not trying to fight you. I’m trying to say something. Something I’ve been wanting to say for a very long time and you’re just-” Adam makes a frustrated sound and gestures in Ronan’s direction, “-still trying to hurt yourself.”

Adam sees Ronan hang his head, frowning at the floor. They don’t speak for few long minutes. Adam wants to scream; wants to pry open those metal doors with his bare hands and run away, never to look at Ronan again. 

He also feels very stupid. He’d thought he’d feel brave, speaking about this thing they’ve been dancing around for so long, the thing they don’t speak about, don’t aknowledge. All the stolen glances and stolen looks; the nights Adam spent with Ronan sleeping next to him on the floor of St Agnes. Adam wasn’t sure he was ready to face it but it was now in the open. 

“Are you,“ started Adam, “not going to say an-”

There was a loud bang on the doors. Ronan shot back up and shouted back “We’re here!”

Adam sighed. So much for talking about this.

*

“Why are you such a little shit?”

“I dunno, guess I came out of the factory like this.”

Adam groans and burries his hands in his hair, pulling at the strands and then slams Ronan’s door close.

“What are you doing?” Ronan stops unlacing his boots and looks at Adam, eyes wide.

“We’re talking about this.”

“No we’re not.”

“Yes, we are. You just insulted Blue and now Gansey’s mad at you.”

“So?”

“So, you’ve also been avoiding me.”

“No, I haven’t. Now get out of my room.” He throws his boots across the room and sits up to pick up his headphones.

Adam is tired. Really,  _ really _ tired. He hasn’t slept properly ever since that awful conversation in the elevator. He’s been working and studying and Ronan is avoiding him and he is  _ tired _ .

“What was that about?”

“You’re still here.” 

Adam pinches the bridge of his nose when he sees Ronan has pressed the small button and just laid down on the bed, crossing his ankles, arms behind his head.

“You’re such an insufferable fool,” he shouts.

Ronan gestures to his headphones and shakes his head.

Adam groans again. “Fine,” he says, crossing the space to sit down next to Ronan. “If you throw me out the window Gansey will be really upset, so don’t.” 

Ronan’s eyes were wide and his mouth set but he didn’t seem to be hearing him. Adam could hear his god awful music pulsating through the headphones. He reached for them and yanked them off.

Ronan didn’t move. Adam threw the headphones down on the ground.

“Why did you say those things?”

“I don’t want to talk. God, Parrish, can’t you get a hint?” He made to sit up but Adam pressed his hands to his chest and made him lay down again.

“Ronan.”

“Adam.”

He sighs. “You were trying to hurt me.”

Ronan scoffs. “No.”

“Just like you did the other day.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I talked. I said what I had to say. Did you listen?”

The fight seemed to leave Ronan; his shoulders dropped and he inhaled deeply. He closed his eyes. 

“Yes,” he said.

“Then, what’s happening?”

“I-” Ronan looked up at the ceiling. “It-” He bit into his lips and let out a sigh. “I don’t know what you want. And it scares me.”

“Then ask me. Don’t go around being a dick and then expect everyone to be there for you the next day. That’s not how friendship works.”   
Ronan’s eyes grew dark. “Friendship.”

“Blue. Gansey.”

“Not you.”

“Ask me,” says Adam.

“Adam.”

“Ask me,” Adam repeats.

Ronan sits up, slowly. “Why were you looking at me?”

“I like you. Now, ask me out. Properly, Lynch. No jokes, no halves.”

“I never do anything by half,” Ronan grins.

“I know.”

Ronan sits up straighter and moves closer, looking at Adam, needing to make sure. Adam knew Ronan didn’t lie. Adam knew Ronan knew he did. Ronan wanted to make sure. “I like you, Adam. And I don’t do anything by half.”

“I know,” he pressed his hand to Ronan’s thigh and let it stay there.

“I also don’t put out on the first day.”

Adam laughs, “You haven’t asked me yet.”

Ronan finds Adam’s other hand, resting on his bed and circles his hand around his wrist. “Will you let me take you out, Parrish? As my date?”

“Yes.”

Ronan smiles and Adam has to push down that feeling, that tug at his heart that’s always there whenever Ronan smiles at him like that.

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Taken" by Hayley Wiliams.


End file.
